Skull 05

For this skull, I decided to go back to the idea of the first skull, which was to play around with colors, textures, and shapes a little more abstractly. This one turned out a little more “sketchy” because of it. I could have spent time to “clean it up” and make all the lines smooth and not show brushstrokes, but I wanted to see what would happen when I did less of that. It was actually quite hard not to go back over something and “fix it up” to make it look “nicer.”

I don’t want to say I’m scared of color, but I do tend to stick to palettes with fewer colors which can make my paintings more monochromatic (like the last few). With this one, I had a little more fun with the colors. However, because I like to start with dark colors and build up the white/ light color, I tend to de-saturate a lot of the color (and there are more “pastels” in this than pure saturated colors). I think I’d like to try another like this at some point with brighter colors and less blending of color even on the palette.

Spooky Film: Today’s spooky film of the day is “The Exorcist.” I recently watched “The Exorcism of Emily Rose” which was not bad, but it made me want to watch “The Exorcist” again. “The Exorcist” has a lot of ambience, really getting that spooky feeling going especially if you watch it late at night with all the lights off, plus it has Max von Sydow who does a great job of making things feel creepier. I’ve watched Max von Sydow’s great acting in a lot of movies, but after I saw him play the devil in “Needful Things,” I can’t help but think of him as the devil in the book “Master and Margarita” – so if anyone ever makes that into a movie, please, please cast him as the devil. Anyway, if you haven’t seen “The Exorcist” or you’re just looking for some good spooks, watch it!